Education tops State of the Community talks

Thursday

Apr 25, 2013 at 12:01 AM

TUSCALOOSA | Education took center stage at Wednesday’s State of the Community breakfast, with Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox warning that city schools could face a major funding shortage in a few years. Also, Tuscaloosa County Probate Judge Hardy McCollum told the audience that money could be saved if the county and city school systems merged.

By Patrick RupinskiBusiness Editor

TUSCALOOSA | Education took center stage at Wednesday’s State of the Community breakfast, with Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox warning that city schools could face a major funding shortage in a few years.Also, Tuscaloosa County Probate Judge Hardy McCollum told the audience that money could be saved if the county and city school systems merged.Maddox said that sometime within the next two to three years, Tuscaloosa will hold a referendum asking city voters to reauthorize an 11-mill property tax for city schools.The tax, approved by voters in 1986, raises $10 million to $20 million yearly for the city school system, he said. It supports enhanced programs like Advanced Placement classes, robotics classes and even the Strings in Schools orchestra, Maddox said.“Sometime in the next 36 months, there will be a city referendum to renew the property tax,” Maddox told about 250 people attending the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama-sponsored event at Hotel Capstone. “If it is not renewed, it will be catastrophic for our school system.“If the referendum fails, it will affect more than our schools,” he said. “A defeat would affect the quality of life.”The mayor said failure to renew the tax would hurt the city’s efforts to attract new business and industry and harm existing businesses’ opportunities to grow.Maddox said after the breakfast that the referendum most likely will be set in 2015, with the City Council calling a special election. In response to a question on education, McCollum, the county’s chief administrator, said he believed a combined city-county school system would result in an economy of scale. Right now, school buses from both systems pass each other on the road, he said in citing one example of duplication of services. “I think a complete study needs to be done on combining the school systems,” McCollum said. “There is no doubt in my mind that it would save money.” McCollum’s remarks followed comments from Northport Mayor Bobby Herndon, who said his city is doing a long and thorough job in researching the possibility of creating its own school system, which would become the third public school system in the county. Northport now is part of the Tuscaloosa County School System, with nine county system schools within its city limits. Northport accounts for about 30 percent of the county system’s students, Herndon said.“We just want to investigate whether it makes sense,” he said. “A great school system is very important to us. We want to take our time to see if it is the right thing to do.”In other comments:Maddox announced the city and the University of Alabama are discussing possibly expanding UA’s Bryant Conference Center. He said the city needs a larger meeting place to attract major conventions, which now bypass the city.He also said the city has a serious rental housing shortage, particularly for lower-income renters.About 70 percent of the homes destroyed in the April 27, 2011, tornado, were rental properties, with most of those homes built between 1940 and 1970, he said. Because of the age of the buildings, they did not meet current building codes. The new codes will make replacement housing more expensive. “The private market to rebuild (for the low income) is not there,” he said. The rental housing problem is most acute in the Alberta area, where 80 to 90 percent of the destroyed residences were rentals, he said. The Tuscaloosa mayor criticized the state for shifting too much of its responsibility to the cities, expecting them to pick up the cost for corrections and mental health. He said the state’s funding cuts in those two areas have put a heavy burden on local police.He said the city desperately needs funding for parks and needs to focus on improving its knowledge-technology infrastructure if it wants to remain competitive.Maddox also acknowledged that downtown parking is a growing concern with the city losing several lots to private development — most recently the CityFest lot where a new hotel will be built.He said there are one or two more major developments that will affect the downtown area. Among the things being considered are offering a downtown valet parking service for restaurant-goers and having developers set aside parking spaces with their developments.McCollum said infrastructure improvements, particularly roads, remain the county’s greatest challenge. The eastern bypass needs to be built and improvements need to made to Alabama Highway 69, he said.Herndon said Northport has shed its image as being a little Mayberry-like town and is seeing retail and residential growth with a population of about 25,000.

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